Unfortunately, Romantic Comedy
by snappleducated
Summary: Teenage girls don't really appreciate it when their fathers start being total drama queens. Eternal darkness or not, Eska is an optimist on a manhunt. Manhunt, as in the kind with carnage. Not kissing. Probably.


**ENTITLED**. Unfortunately, Romantic Comedy  
 **FANDOM**. Legend of Korra  
 **LENGTH**. 2,435 words  
 **SETTING**. S2, E13: "Darkness Falls"  
 **DISCLAIMER**. I do not own the characters or the vaguely remembered plotline of this fanfiction. There are about three lines of dialogue that have been lifted from the show. There is also a quote/prompt by Albus Dumbledore in here.  
 **NOTES**. Written for the Pro Bending Circuit Round 6, submission for team Harbor Town Hog Monkeys.  
 **SUMMARY**. Teenage girls don't really appreciate it when their fathers start being total drama queens. Eternal darkness or not, Eska is an optimist on a manhunt. Manhunt, as in the kind with carnage. Not kissing. Probably.

* * *

Sometimes being constantly shadowed by one's gloomy twin brother could be a downer. To clarify, 'a downer' in this context did not refer to the sort of self-indulgent misery Eska relished, but rather a state of constant, grating irritation. For what must have been the fourth time that hour, Desna asked her, "Are you mad about our father's increasingly erratic life choices?"

Eska tried to control herself. So much for twin-telepathy. "I have reached sufficient age to care for myself. The actions of my father are irrelevant to me. Besides, he has never once attempted to eat me, as is frequently the unfortunate outcome of father-child relationships in the animal kingdom."

Desna was quiet for a moment as the two of them stared out across the vast, silent ice field. He fidgeted slightly, and offered as comfort, "The world will end soon enough."

"It will not end, foolish brother, we will merely enter a plane of eternal darkness," Eska corrected. She added, as a malicious afterthought, "And then I will not have to see you anymore. I can hardly contain my excitement."

Desna's eyebrow rose very slightly, probably in admonishment. "We look the same. I can understand your recent sensitivity following the abandonment you suffered during your maiden voyage of holy matrimony, but perhaps you should tone down your self-loathing."

Eska growled. _No one_ was supposed to mention her horrible, awful, most tragic day ever. When she found a moment alone with Bolin again, she would—she would—

"Calm your erratic female moods," Desna wheezed, and after a few spiteful seconds, Eska released his torso from her slowly crushing ice prison. Squeezing your twin was not, after all, the most effective means of travelling.

As the twins zoomed over the ice towards the spirit portal, Eska reflected that periodically threatening her brother's life was not exactly the worst thing that could happen to their relationship. Feeling slightly warmer towards her twin, she shared with him the good news. "Father will be displeased we allowed the captives to escape."

Indeed, he shall likely be furious," Desna giggled.

"What do you suppose he will do to us for failing him?" Eska baited. "Perhaps plunge us into a nightmare that will outlast our natural lifespans a hundred times over?"

They both had to pause for some very satisfying belly-cackles.

The spirit portal was in sight now, and even as they picked up speed again Eska thought she saw a small figure come flying back into the material world. No doubt some morons were expending a pointless amount of energy on some distastefully flashy bending battle. God, this place really was the boonies.

"Is that father?" Desna muttered. Eska made a face. There was nothing quite so annoying as being lectured by the man who wanted to bring eternal darkness to the world. Still, she and Desna kept up the pace of their approach, zipping into a nearby tree line for cover as they made their way to where they had seen the tiny figure land. There was a sudden flash of light that burned through the trees. The spirit portal's energy had fluctuated. Someone else had come through to the material plane.

Eska hung back as their father came into view, and Desna stepped forward to confront him. "Father," Desna greeted. "You are surely disappointed in us."

"That can wait," Unalaq hissed. He dropped down into a crouch, and Desna followed suit. Feeling grumpy about the entire situation, Eska shuffled behind a large tree.

"We have been wondering if mother was aware of your plans to end the world?" Desna volleyed. Unalaq looked as though he was about ready to slap his son. Eska, who would deny any form of affection for her brother other than removed narcissism, nevertheless added her voice to his objections.

"Father, when you proposed a vacation for us, you specifically neglected to mention that we would be acting as your minions." She followed her father's line of sight through the dense, snow-capped trees back to the spirit portal, and experienced some truly unpleasant heart palpitations. Even though she had seen him just hours earlier, and had known that Bolin would inevitably chase after her noisy cousin, seeing him here was still enough to shake her.

"Distract them for me," Unalaq hissed. "Both of you, circle around. We'll come at them from three directions."

"Once again, the heroine must chose between love and family," Eska intoned, and then felt kind of annoyed that neither her brother nor father seemed to take her fairly legitimate conflict with any level of seriousness. Not that she was, or ever would be, the type to blindly follow around her heart's whims. But still, they could have _appreciated_ her sacrifice a little more. She hurled a few deadly icicles in what might have arguably been the general direction of her ex-boyfriend and his brother.

Did anything even matter anymore? Short answer: no.

Eska stomped through the thick snow as her feeble turtle duck and associate were unsurprisingly overpowered. God, he was such a wimp. How he expected to survive without her was seriously unclear. She was almost worried about him, except, of course, the inevitability of the world's demise she was actively participating in sort of negated that.

She had never felt more like a goon than the moment her moment her father left her and Desna behind to drag around a pair of unconscious boys while Unalaq tried to fuse with his super important spirit of chaos. "We are hired muscle," Desna remarked. Eska, feeling some responsibility as the slightly older twin, did her best to act as a mediator between sibling and parent.

"Our father likely has much on his mind. Also, as he is paying us nothing, we are technically not hired."

"Once again, I can't help but question—" Desna began to argue, then had to stop as their two supposedly unconscious captives decided to stop being unconscious in the most violent and flamboyant way possible. Eska personally felt that smashing her stomach with about two hundred pounds of solid stone was an unnecessary gesture. She should have known better than to expect anything from that wedding jilter.

"Oh my, what a shocking turn of events," Desna remarked as the two brothers rushed back into the spirit world. "The captives who have escaped us before on numerous occasions have once again, to borrow a phrase, totally split."

Eska frowned. He was seriously getting very mouthy lately. "Everyone knows I'm the funny twin," she scolded. "And stop undermining yourself so obviously."

"I can't help it. My nature is inherently self-destructive." Desna shot back. Eska supposed they should at least make a show of running after their escaped captives. The leisurely stroll had been in fashion for so _long_.

"I struggled to understand why I would choose to associate with someone who I find even more exhausting than myself," Eska snapped, and jumped through the spirit portal. Her stomach fluttered oddly for a moment, which she swiftly attributed to inter-planer turbulence that was not at all related to weaknesses such as nerves, or heartbreak.

Even in the spirit world, her boyfriend was still running away from her with pitiful results. He nearly fell on his face with every second step, and the amount of snow he was kicking up behind him managed, somehow, to hit him in the back of the head. Eska simply could not bear to watch him for a second longer, and instantly froze him and his brother into a set of very strict ice prisons. After that, she and Desna took their sweet time approaching their captives, as their father's battle with Korra gradually receded into the distance.

Upon reaching her prey, Eska felt some statement of grandiosity and smugness was called for. "How familiar, to have you bound before me," she remarked, as the end of the world was approaching and she felt it was no longer creepy to make flirtatious comments in front of her twin. Bolin whimpered.

The Other One asked, "Not that this is the time for it, but—do I even want to know?"

"I doubt you have the sensitivity or knowledge required to understand the intricacies of what we had," Eska replied. Turtle duck was trying to shake his head, which was difficult given the icy prison she'd drawn around him.

"It's not what you think, Mako. I mean, I guess we _were_ just kidnapped by her, but apart from that, there was really only the time with the collar—"

"Betrothal necklace," Eska interrupted, then considered. "Or choker."

"Don't listen to her, Mako!" Bolin hissed.

"I'm _so_ glad the world is about to end," Desna piped up. Eska ignored him, as did everybody else. The time for words was fast running out. Who knew what eternal darkness upon all the land even meant? Flirting was probably not allowed.

"I had often dreamed of dragging your body behind me through the frozen wastes," Eska told Bolin. "More recently as punishment for betraying my maiden heart, but at first, you liked it. And, my brother was not present."

"We could leave," Bolin's brother offered. Desna actually took the time to turn around and scowl at him. Since looking at Bolin seemed to unleash a mire of frustration, disappointment, and queasy heart-palpitations within her already battle-bruised chest, Eska turned instead to survey the cold bleakness of their surroundings. Maybe ten thousand years of darkness meant that everything would look like the spirit world's version of the South Pole. Eska was pretty sure that while there would be ample time for boredom and misery, she probably wouldn't ever be able to have those tiny cakes Bolin had showed her. Why was she even doing this again?

After several minutes of stoic guarding, Mako had more or less given up pleading for his release, and was now mostly squinting at the far-off horizon where Korra and Unalaq were still fighting. And of course it was into the relative quiet that Bolin began to whine. "I'm cold."

"I know," Eska confirmed. "I locked your pitifully garbed body in ice. Furthermore, the spirit world is horrible and meant for dead people."

"I'm cold and I have to pee," Bolin said.

Eska frowned. "Hold it."

"Bo, don't!" his brother hissed, with suddenly crazed eyes. "You'll be able to melt the ice a little bit faster!"

"Aw man, I don't want to head into the final battle with gross pants!" Bolin wailed. The heat from his body had done enough work on the ice that he was now able to rotate his head enough to look at his brother. "Why don't _you_ ever have to take on the pee jokes?!"

Eska made a frustrated snarling noise, and refroze the ice around Bolin's face. She touched up her work on Mako, too. The last thing her ice prison need was a mobile fire bender.

"Eska, _please_ ," Bolin wailed. "You know how I feel having to hold it in! It's not good for you! Also, I'm an actor now, and my agent really feels like I need to work on my image—and also, your cousin! Korra is your cousin! How can you just let her die!"

"Your appeal is senseless. The alternative is letting our father die." Desna pointed out. Bolin looked as though he was about to start crying. It was at this point that Mako began pointing out all the reasons why letting their father die was not actually that bad of an option, listing reasons such as his voluntarily fusing with a spirit of chaos, and criminally negligent parenting. Eska glared at everyone. At this rate, Desna was really going to start moaning about how father had never loved them, and she seriously didn't have the patience to deal with that. Why was her family so _embarrassing_? Bolin was probably feeling all kinds of smug. No wonder he didn't want to marry in with a bunch emotionally insane water benders.

Bolin burst into tears.

Eska allowed that she was still having difficulty assessing her former beloved's mental state.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it. It's just so sad that I'll never get to be with you again!" Bolin bawled, tears now welling up in his round green eyes. Eska's stomach clenched uncomfortably. He always was an attractive weeper.

An attractive weeper with _horrible timing_. Eska ground her teeth. Men were so useless. So feeble. All it took was a little doom or a lack of breakfast and their emotions came pouring out from everywhere!

Imbeciles. All of them. Her stomach clenched again. Stupid, stupid Bolin. Eska had read enough to know that the damsels were always the hero's weakness and eventual downfall. How romantic.

She looked into the face of her sniveling, pleading former turtle duck, and felt herself soften. Yes. He _would_ be her downfall. And there would be plenty of time for broody, self-indulgent reflection later, now that the world would probably not be ending, due to her decision to change sides.

But before any of that, there would be kissing.

Feeling as benevolent and aloof as a priest, Eska released Bolin and his brother from their icy prisons, so that they could run around pretending to be heroes, and mostly just feel good about themselves. In the distance, what looked like a fire giant was trying to step on Unalaq.

"It occurs to me," Eska began, as she and her brother watched Mako and Bolin gallop through the snow like a pair of uncoordinated idiots, "That I have made a huge miscalculation. Bolin should stay home and wait for me, until the danger is settled."

"They will surely perish," Desna agreed. Eska fiddled for a moment with the ends of her bangs. Desna watched her, looking disgruntled. "You're blushing."

"Like everything else in this world, it shall eventually vanish," Eska retorted.

"I hardly think this is the appropriate time or place for your silly romantics. We are faced with either acting as accomplices to the demise of our now monstrous father, or standing idly by while the world is brought to an end." Desna had folded his hands up into his robes, a sign that he was once again trying to claim leadership of their twin duo. Eska scoffed quietly and began speeding over the ice towards her useless boyfriend.

"I'm an optimist."

"Your affair with him is sickening, and hardly worth any emotion near what might be called happiness."

"Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one simply remembers to turn on the light," Eska said, somewhat dreamily. Ahead of her, Korra and Unalaq seemed to be bludgeoning one another with concentrated spirit matter, and Bolin had fallen over again.

The world wouldn't be ending today.


End file.
